


As The Years Go By

by alilactree



Category: Glee
Genre: Best Friends, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Kid Klaine, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-04 19:03:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3083915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alilactree/pseuds/alilactree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine moves into the house behind Kurt's, they grow up together as best friends and then more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kurt has everyone arranged at the little table just right: Sundance, a floppy-eared puppy he got for Christmas, Brown Bear who is worn and lumpy and needs a better name but Kurt can’t really think of anything that’s quite right, and Princess Penelope The Frog that Kurt’s dad won at the county fair. She’s missing one eye, but that’s okay. She makes it work. 

It’s the second weekend after the start of school, still hot and muggy outside, but there’s a breeze that makes the leaves swish and flutter, shadows dancing across Kurt’s upturned face and the surface of the wicker table where his tea party is still waiting for tea.

Not juice or water. Real tea. So Mom had gone back into the kitchen with a sigh and a smile and Kurt had wriggled in his chair. Real tea. Like the Queen.

He could have had friends over, but Kurt had thought about it and rubbed at his nose and said that he didn’t want anyone to come. But no matter, Mom and Sundance and Brown Bear and Princess Penelope The Frog are wonderful company; polite and well-mannered and they never call him names or push him in the dirt.

Kurt watches the leaves twirl and twist, squints his eyes against the sunlight and kicks a table leg. Mom is taking a _million years_ with that tea.

“Hello.”

Kurt sits with a start, whips his head around to the fence behind him. There’s a boy. He has black hair and fat cheeks and he’s wearing a checkered shirt and a bow tie and a vest, with a bright red cape tied over his shoulders.

Kurt blinks at him, then back at the house. He turns in his chair and sits backwards on his knees even though his dad is always telling him he’ll fall and crack his skull when he does it. His dad not here. Just this boy with a cape.

“Who are you?” Kurt says, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. _Stranger danger_ , he thinks, even though this boy is smaller than him and smiles at Kurt like they’re already friends.

The boy lifts one fist over his head into the air, crooks the other next to it and says, “Superman!”

Kurt clicks his tongue like Mom does when Dad watches two football games in a row. “Not really, though,” he tells the boy.

The boy frowns. “I’m just pretending.”

“I _know_ ,” Kurt replies. He turns back around and starts to divvy out the apricot thumbprint cookies he and Mommy made earlier. 

“Are you having a tea party?” The boy says. Then softer, a little nervous, “Can I play?”

Kurt pauses with a cookie held over Princess Penelope The Frog’s delicate porcelain plate. “Okay,” he says and sets it down. “But we’re having real tea. For real.”

The boy skips over and sits in Mom’s seat, grinning brightly. “Okay!”

Kurt scowls a little before remembering the importance of being a good host. He sets a cookie on the plate in front of him. “What’s your name?”

“Blaine,” the boy says. He politely folds his hands on the table, no elbows, very good, and thanks Kurt for the cookie.

“I’m Kurt.” He takes a cookie for himself and notices that Blaine waits and doesn’t cram the cookie in his mouth at all. “You have excellent manners, Blaine.”

Blaine grins like the bright sun in the sky. “Thanks!”

When Mom comes back with the tea and sugar she lets Blaine keep her seat, and works in her garden instead, only sometimes looking over with a smile for both of them. Kurt shows Blaine how to properly drink tea with his pinkie up and that the cookies should be called biscuits, really. Blaine even helps clean up when they’re done.

Kurt likes Blaine. He’s not like other boys: loud and boisterous with dirt-smudged faces, and jeans with holes in the knee. He thinks they could be friends, maybe. Only Kurt is hot now and his mom says if he stays outside longer he has to put on sunscreen and it feels sticky and gross on his skin and he hates it, so he heads into the house.

Blaine hesitates at the doorway. “My mom can’t see me inside,” he says, pointing to the house behind Kurt’s, the second story rising over the tall fence that separates the two backyards.

Kurt hmms and scratches his nose. “Do you like playing dress up?” he asks, after thinking about it for a minute.

“Oh, yes!” Blaine answers. He hops up and down like a pogo stick.

Kurt grins, he thought so. His mom helps him drag his dress up box outside and he stands on the porch and gets sunscreen rubbed into his cheeks and arms and the back of his neck. He and Blaine end up having so much fun that he barely even notices the stickiness at all.

Blaine is in kindergarten and Kurt is in first grade and this is important because kindergartners take naps and first graders do addition with double digits and do not take naps. They also never really see each other at school. So Kurt sort of makes friends with a few girls, but mostly he plays by himself. That’s okay, though. He and Blaine play together after school and on weekends. Blaine even asks Kurt to be his best friend. Kurt says yes.

“We should do a blood oath,” Blaine says. Blaine’s dad built a tree house after they finished unpacking their new house. He and Blaine spend as much time as they can up here, even though Blaine always wants to play pirates in the treehouse. Too much pirates. 

“No, Blaine. That’s unsanitary.” Kurt sits cross-legged on the floor of the tree house and thinks and thinks. They need furniture up here. Perhaps a chaise lounge.

Blaine scrunches up his whole face. “A spit oath?”

“Ugh, no.”

“Well, how do we make it official?” Blaine demands, bouncing around too much like he does when he’s worked up about something. Kurt watches him and thinks some more and then hops up, holds Blaine by his little shoulders so he’ll stay still and says, “Go get a marker. Your mom’s. The black kind.”

Blaine’s mouth pulls down. “I’m not supposed to use those.”

Kurt squeezes Blaine’s shoulders and widens his eyes. “Duh, Blaine. I’ll use it.”

“Oh!” Blaine grins again and wiggles. “Okay, yeah!”

Kurt waits as he climbs down the ladder and then runs inside. He wonders if Cooper is home and if he’ll sing for them. Blaine always gets mad and sings too, which is twice the fun for Kurt. 

When Blaine comes back he creeps into the treehouse, does a somersault and flings the marker like a ninja star. Kurt shakes his head and picks it up from the corner. If Blaine doesn’t want to play pirates, he wants to play ninjas. Kurt is amazing at ninjas. But not right now.

Kurt crouches down to a panel of wood in the back corner, dried leaves in a pile and dirt gathering against the baseboard. Kurt asks Blaine if he knows how to spell his name and Blaine makes a very sour face and loudly says each letter. Kurt scrawls, KURT+ BLAINE 4 EVER. He saw it on a cartoon once.

“There,” he says, standing up and capping the pen. “Best friends officially.” Blaine runs over and hugs him tight. Kurt looks at the letters and knows in his heart of hearts that it’s true.

After Kurt’s mom dies, he doesn’t want to see Blaine after school and on weekends and have sleepovers. He doesn’t want to see Blaine at all. He’s too sad and too angry. He doesn’t want to laugh or dance or have fun. So he stays home and watches TV and eats dessert for dinner and tries to understand. He never really does.

Eventually he and Dad learn how to live with an empty space and Kurt figures out how to breathe with a hollowed out chest. Dad makes dinner one night instead of picking up fast food or leaving Kurt to fend for himself. The chicken is frozen solid in the middle and they laugh until tears gather at the corners of their eyes. Kurt doesn’t know why it’s funny, but it is, and after that things sometimes feel okay.

When he goes up to the treehouse one night at dusk and flashes the flashlight at Blaine’s window to signal him he’s surprised to see all the leaves and dirt and dust inside. Like Blaine hasn’t been up here either, even though it’s his treehouse and he has other friends. Kurt sweeps dirt and leaves away with his sneaker, hears the backdoor open and close, and then Blaine’s dark head pops up into the trapdoor.

Blaine climbs in, searches Kurt’s face and says nothing. Just pulls his iPod from his pocket and offers Kurt an earbud. They lie on the cold, hard floor of the treehouse and listen to Pink and The Black Eyed Peas and Destiny’s Child and Green Day. Blaine holds his hand and they don’t talk, the treehouse going dark around them, and it’s exactly what Kurt needed.

Things never go back to normal. But Kurt has his dad and Blaine and for a long time that’s enough. 

Until Kurt starts middle school, and things get difficult.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for this part: Mentions of bullying and assault. Hospitalization.

Kurt knows he’s different, is now acutely aware of his differences even if he can’t quite get his finger on the pulse of exactly why. He doesn’t have just a few friends at school now, he has none. He is not just a social pariah, he is a _target_. Every day he walks into battle and leaves weary and broken. He’s frustrated and afraid and he takes it out on Blaine because he’s there.

Blaine is different, too. He likes show tunes just like Kurt. He dresses oddly and fashionably like Kurt. He likes to sing and dance and sew and do crafts like Kurt. But Blaine has friends, lots of them. Friends that he plays football with and goes to sleepovers with and is aways being invited to birthday parties or a day at Cedar Point or the lake and Kurt gets invited nowhere ever.

“Are you gonna go get your overnight bag or just borrow stuff?” Kurt asks, in the middle of watching The Sound of Music again. 

“ _A flibbertigibbet. A willow-o'-the-wisp. A clown_ ,” Blaine sings in his sweet, beautiful voice. He grabs a handful of popcorn and eats a few kernels. “Actually, I made plans. Going to see The Dark Knight with Sam later.”

Kurt pulls the popcorn bowl onto his lap and scoots against the other end of the couch. “Why do you hang out with him? He’s like—A dumb jock.”

Blaine chews with his eyebrows pulled flat. “He’s nice, Kurt. You should come with us, then you can get to know him.”

“Yeah, no thanks,” Kurt scoffs. “I don’t need to stoop that low to make friends.”

Blaine twists to face him, the movie flickering in bursts of light and color across his face. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Kurt rolls his eyes. “Jeez, Blaine. Do I have to explain everything to you? Now I understand why you’re friends with a dumb jock, god.”

Blaine’s mouth snaps closed, his jaw works and his eyes narrow. “You know what? I’d rather hang out with a dumb jock than someone who’s so stuck up and mean.”

He stands from the couch, walks up the stairs and slams the door behind him. The floor above the basement thunders with Blaine’s stomping feet, and the front door slams, too. 

Now Kurt has no friends at all. Good. He doesn’t need them. He doesn’t need anyone. He watches the rest of the movie by himself and doesn’t even cry. He doesn’t sing, though. It’s not the same without Blaine.

And then Blaine comes out. A whole summer without him, where Kurt looked over his fence into the empty treehouse and tried to pretend he didn’t ache with missing Blaine. He’s at Kurt’s school now and Kurt walks down the hall with his chin lifted and eyes averted and never, ever, for a second lets his guard down. This way he’s safe.

Blaine has never been very good about protecting all the tender parts of himself, just out there and bold and Kurt is terrified for him. What can he do? It’s too much, he can’t protect them both, he’s not even doing a very good job of protecting himself. 

“Hey, kiddo.” His dad comes into the kitchen where Kurt is cutting up magazines and putting together outfit ideas. His dad’s hat is off, and he sits solemnly at the table and reaches for Kurt’s hand. Kurt’s stomach drops to his feet.

“What’s wrong?” Kurt says, and immediately he thinks his dad is dying, too and he’s flushed with frozen terror.

“It’s Blaine,” his dad says. “He’s in the hospital. He uh—” There’s pain written all over his face, he swallows hard. “He was attacked, Kurt.”

He’s angry at first. Kurt knew better than to go to the dance. What did Blaine think would happen, going to the dance with another boy? Is he that stupid? Kurt stares, fuming, out the dark window, the world lit with only sweeping headlights and soft street lamps and the reflection of highway signs and white lines. They start to blur, Kurt’s eyes burning and his throat a clenched fist. 

How could anyone hurt Blaine? The kindest, happiest, sweetest boy Kurt has ever known. Who is Blaine hurting, being himself? Who is Kurt hurting? He feels sick to his stomach and starts to sob so hard that his Dad has to pull over and hold him, doesn’t even say anything about Kurt getting tears and snot on his shirt. His dad pulls away and starts the car again after Kurt is drained, hiccuping and sniffling. 

“He’s gonna be okay, bud.”

Kurt nods, and he knows it’s not really true, but maybe someday. Maybe Blaine will learn how to be okay like Kurt has when everything is an angry hurricane around you.

Blaine looks tiny in the bed. His hair is all puffy around a bald spot with a grotesque line of black stitches on one side. His bottom lip is split and fat, face pale and waxy. He has a winding clear IV tube inserted and taped down in the crook of one elbow.

Kurt stands against the door frame with his arms crossed and says, “The color of that hospital gown is all wrong for your skin tone.”

Blaine’s eyes crack open and then he smiles, slowly and lopsided but as sunny as always. “Kurt. You came.” Kurt sits next to him and the lines of pain and worry on Blaine’s face disappear and he reaches over to hug Kurt. Kurt holds him so tight that Blaine hisses and whimpers in pain. “Careful. Bruises.”

“I’m sorry,” Kurt blurts, scared and shaken. “I’m so sorry, Blaine.”

Blaine tucks his face into Kurt’s neck and whispers, “It’s okay. Me too. I missed you.”

So many things he could tell Blaine: he’s so angry and he misses Blaine so much and please, please never leave and he’s so so afraid and lonely and brittle and he doesn’t know how to stop.

“Your stitches are pretty badass,” he says, pulling back and fiddling with a line of pilled fabric on the blanket covering Blaine’s little body.

Blaine leans against the pillow. “Yeah? Cool.”

Kurt glances to his dad waiting outside the room, talking with Blaine’s parents. “I uh. I was sort of a jerk.”

Blaine grins at him and says, “Duh, Kurt.”

Kurt levels a glare at him. “If you weren’t injured I would totally smack you for that.”

“I’d be careful if I were you. I’m a badass now.” Blaine’s eyes droop and he blinks slowly, sinking back down into the stiff starched white pillow. He fights it, mumbles something about being a little sleepy, but Kurt watches his eyes close, his thick eyelashes a swath of black against his cheekbones. His mouth goes slack and his chest slowly rises and falls. 

“I love you,” Kurt tells him once he’s all the way asleep. Kurt doesn’t know how he means it, he only knows that whatever he feels for Blaine takes up too much space inside him, pushes at all of his edges and corners. Blaine is his best friend. And Kurt loves him.

Middle school continues to be hell. The guys who jumped Blaine aren’t even punished. Blaine’s parents go to the school and Blaine himself appeals to the administration. All of the responses seem to amount to the same thing: Too bad. That’s just the sort of thing he’ll have to deal with now.

When Blaine looks at him with wide, wet eyes and a deep frown and asks, “Do you care that I’m gay?”

Kurt can’t make the words come out. _I think I am too_. “Blaine, of course not,” he says, pats his knee and gives him a small smile. 

There’s a rumor that the guys who went after Blaine are planning on a second act. Most rumors at school turn out to be wild exaggerations, or complete lies, but Blaine’s parents pull him anyway. He goes to a private school, two hours away, and boards there during the week.

Kurt is sad and jealous, but at least he has no qualms about thinking of the student body as a whole like the pond scum that they are. Nothing gets better, he just cares less now.

“Ugh, this sucks,” Kurt flings himself onto the bed, watching Blaine pack for the week on a Sunday afternoon, after spending all day Saturday catching up on homework. 

“Yeah. Dalton’s okay though.” He packs up socks and undershirts, a bottle of shampoo and shower shoes. “They have fencing.”

“You did always have a weird pirate thing,” Kurt says. 

Blaine packs conditioner and hair gel and pajamas. “It’s not weird.”

“Sure, sure.” Kurt sits up suddenly, he thinks a few months is long enough to give Blaine a sense for what an all-boys school is like and he’s desperately curious. “How many boys have you kissed?” he asks, and hopes that Blaine doesn’t notice how flushed his cheeks are.

“None,” Blaine replies. He gives Kurt an odd look. “What do you think goes on there?”

Kurt shrugs. “I dunno. Shenanigans?”

Blaine barks a laugh, then pelts Kurt with a balled up pair of socks. “You’re such a dummy.”

Kurt gasps and throws them back, right in Blaine’s face. Blaine retaliates by jumping onto the bed and tickling Kurt until he’s yelling and twisting and breathless. “Stop, stop!” Kurt moves left and Blaine lunges and they both go down, hitting the floor so hard that Blaine’s mom shouts up the stairs to make sure they’re okay.

“I hate you,” Kurt groans, flat on his back with Blaine sprawled over him.

“Too bad, because you’re stuck with me forever. We made a permanent marker oath.” Blaine grins and his eyes flash amber in the sunlight coming from the window. Kurt’s heart thuds off beat, a strange tingle hot in his belly. He wants to know what it’s like to kiss a boy. For a brief, fleeting second he wants to know what it’s like to kiss Blaine.

“If you two are done horsing around there are smoothies and graham crackers for snack in the den.”

Blaine hops up. “Thanks, Mom!”

Kurt waits a beat until the weird feeling goes away and his heart starts to beat normally again. He follows Blaine from his room and into the den, a path he’s taken thousands of times, but today it feels different. He can’t quite figure out why.


	3. Chapter 3

Kurt starts high school, and it’s better, if only by increments, but it’s something. Now he understands proper skin care and his dad has given him a very generous clothing allowance that he’s learned to stretch as far and fantastically as possible. He and Blaine had a long summer together, floating in the above ground pool in Blaine’s yard, going to movies at the artsy theater downtown, lazy afternoons in the air conditioned basement watching TV shows, choreographing dance numbers and singing duets.

Blaine decides to go out for the glee club at Dalton, so Kurt says he will, too, at McKinley. 

Glee club ends up being so much more than a fun distraction, it’s acceptance and expression and Kurt can feel his world start to stretch beyond just Blaine. But Blaine still sits at the center, the axis and Kurt’s tethering point of gravity, so making new friends seems safe, and the shifting going on between them feels more comfortable. Usually.

A few months into the school year, Blaine gets a crush on a boy that he constantly texts Kurt about, the older brother of one of his suite mates. _Jeremiah_ is so tall and blond. _Jeremiah_ sat next to him at the coffee shop OMG. _Jeremiah_ is so mature and smart. _Jeremiah_ has the best, most magical hair in the whole wide world and Blaine wants to have ten of his babies and move to Martha’s Vineyard with him and marry him for his Gap discount.

Kurt has never met _Jeremiah_. He hates him so much.

“I’m gonna ask him out, officially,” Blaine says, cross-legged on Kurt’s bed. 

Kurt only mentally rolls his eyes and looks up from his magazine. “How old is he?”

“Seventeen,” Blaine sighs happily. He even flutters his eyelashes. That Kurt does roll his eyes at.

“Blaine, don’t you think you should set your sights a little lower?” He closes his magazine and puts on his best concerned friend face. 

Blaine draws in on himself at that, crossing his arms across his belly and hunching his shoulders. “Do you think he’ll say no? Do you think he doesn’t like me?”

Kurt is so jealous it feels like acid corroding his insides, but he can’t stand that look of defeat on Blaine’s face. “How could he not like you? You’re amazing.” Blaine’s face cracks into a wide grin and Kurt sighs and stands up from his bed. “Come on let’s go to your house and pick your outfit, you are not asking him out in that awful uniform. And we need to wax your eyebrows, they’re very unkempt these days.”

Blaine bounces along behind him and Kurt is pretty sure he deserves a best best friend plaque or something.

Jeremiah turns him down and Blaine is heartbroken. He and Kurt stay up late and eat way too much ice cream and watch sad movies. Blaine falls asleep on Kurt’s shoulder, heavy and warm and sweet-smelling, and forget a plaque. Kurt deserves an Olympic gold medal.

Kurt comes out to Mercedes from glee club first. And then his dad. Saying it out loud for the the first time was hard. Telling his dad was terrifying. Blaine should be easy.

Only he feels like he’s betrayed him, letting him think he was all alone. Not telling the one person who he’s always been honest with since he was six years old. He blurts it out one day in the treehouse, the sky gray and spitting cold rain.

Blaine pauses the scratch of his pencil across his spiral notebook, then says, “Yeah I kinda figured,” and starts writing again.

“You—But—I—” Kurt fumbles. “Why didn’t you say something? I’ve been agonizing about telling you!”

Blaine looks up. “It’s not really my place to say something. I knew you’d get there eventually,” he says, like he doesn’t even _care_. 

Ugh, he can be so aggravating sometimes. Kurt huffs and drops against the back wall, his own weekend assignment flopping off his lap. “Whatever. You aren’t like...Mad?”

“Of course not.” Blaine places both hands over Kurt’s and cocks his head to the side. “I’m proud of you. Telling me was very brave.”

“Do not wise-older-mentor me, Blaine Anderson.” He snatches his hands away. “You aren’t even in high school yet!”

“I’m very mature for my age,” Blaine replies.

“Says the boy who has Batman sheets on his bed,” Kurt laughs.

Blaine grins and elbows Kurt’s ribs, Kurt pokes his round little belly and Blaine squawks and flails. Things are different after that. Better. Yet infinitely more frustrating.

Blaine stops coming home every weekend for a while, some sporting event or group project or Warblers performance. When he does come home, after a few weeks or a couple months, he’s different.

The uniform was new, of course, and then Blaine had starting wearing his hair neatly combed down at all times. His voice starts to change, squeaky and breaking at first, then deeper to the point that Kurt when picks up his phone to call Blaine the voice chirping "Hey Kurt!" on the other line sounds disconcertingly like Mr. Anderson or Cooper instead. Or a stranger.

Blaine gets taller and fills out, all the scrawny parts of him going thick and toned: his chest and stomach and arms and thighs. His chipmunk cheeks disappear, his jawline starts to look hard and angled. He looks older. He looks like he’s becoming a man. He brings up the half an inch height advantage he has over Kurt now a minimum of three times a day. Kurt looks in the mirror and sees the same cherubic baby-face he always has and starts to despair a little.

“Check it out!” Blaine jumps up from his bed as soon as Kurt enters the room and bounds over, right into Kurt’s face. So close Kurt can smell the Cheetos he must have just eaten. Kurt blinks and stares at Blaine’s mouth and his brain sort of zaps out on him.

“Uh...” 

Blaine points to his upper lip. “I have facial hair!” 

Kurt moves him back by the shoulders, then looks closely at where Blaine is pointing: Black coarse hair in a line just above the pink bow of his lip. “Huh,” Kurt says.

“Dad’s gonna teach me how to shave with an old-fashioned straight razor later.” Blaine strokes the wispy dark hairs on his chin. “I can show you how once I learn.”

Kurt thinks about the soft, pale fuzz on his own face that’s about as manly as a dandelion fluff. “Is this like the straight car he tried to build with you?” Kurt wonders, sitting primly on the edge of Blaine’s bed.

“No. Or, I don’t think so.” He bites his lip, then tucks his hands behind his back. “Proper shaving technique is essential for any true gentlemen,” he says, and Kurt can almost hear those exact words coming from Mr. Anderson’s mouth.

Kurt lifts his eyebrows. “Right. Well, we can be proper gentlemen later. Right now, we need to dissect the American Idol performances from the last several weeks. We're way behind.” 

“Okay,” Blaine says, tugging his red-and-navy striped tie loose. "I'm suffocating in this uniform." He shrugs off his blazer and nods to his laptop. "I think I may already have the videos pulled up." He yanks the tie free and starts on his shirt. Kurt’s pulse beats at his throat. 

And then. And then, he shrugs off his shirt and strips his undershirt off and he’s just—shirtless. Kurt has seen him shirtless. This should not be so shocking. But he’s all tight, tan skin and shifting knots of muscle and there’s _hair_ , under his arms and a dark trail of it over low on his stomach. Kurt’s mouth goes dry and his body goes hot and he can’t stop staring at that line of hair and how it disappears into his pants and probably goes right to his—

"Call me crazy, but I kind of miss Paula. Don't you?" Blaine pulls on a red polo and stands with his hands on his hips, waiting for a response from Kurt, completely oblivious to the fact that Kurt is currently spontaneously combusting.

“That’s—” Kurt squeaks. Clears his throat and tries again. “That’s an insult to Ellen, Blaine.”

Blaine wrinkles his nose and drops down onto the bed, flat on his back with his shirt riding up. Kurt stands so quickly he gets dizzy, head swimming and vision going starry at the edges. He sits at Blaine’s desk, opens his laptop. “I'll just. Yeah.”

When he hits a few keys to wake up the laptop, there’s already a page loaded, something that makes Kurt choke and slam the computer closed again. “Oh my god, _Blaine_.”

Blaine pushes up on his elbows and frowns at him. “What?”

Kurt’s face feels like it’s on fire and his stomach churns. “Do you seriously look at stuff that like that?” he asks, appalled and shocked. 

Blaine sits up fully. “What stuff? Kurt what are you talk—” He snaps his mouth closed and at least as the decency to blush a little. “Oh. That.”

“Yeah that,” Kurt says with a harsh narrowing of his eyes.

A long awkward beat and then, “Well. I like to masturbate in the mornings. Helps to mellow me during the day,” Blaine replies blandly. Kurt makes an odd wheezing sound in response. “Come on, Kurt. Like you never ma—”

Kurt holds up a hand. “Do not finish that sentence, Blaine. So help me.”

Blaine leans in and his smile is much too close to smirk for Kurt’s comfort. “Masturbate.”

Kurt stands. “Okay, I’m leaving.” He strides to the door and wishes the floor would just swallow him up instead, this is the single most mortifying moment of his entire life.

“Kurt! Wait, let’s talk about this!” Kurt opens the bedroom door and walks to the stairs, ignoring Blaine’s call of, “You can talk to me about this stuff!”

He doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t even want to think about it. He spends the rest of the day reorganizing his closet and drawers and doing an extra-long skin regime before bed. It’s not until he’s in the dark and under the covers that he thinks about those men on Blaine’s computer and what they were doing. What they looked like. He thinks about himself, with his high voice and round face and soft body. What if he never looks anything like those men? Will anyone ever find him desirable? Will Blaine?

He thinks about Blaine’s body then, tries to push it away and crowd it out, but no use. That trail of dark hair and his brown nipples and his compact muscles and the cut of his hips. He gets that weird squirmy feeling in his belly and blood pulses hot between his legs. Guilt and shame and confusion and desire war in his head and his heart and his groin.

He sleeps terribly that night. And then next day it gets worse. His dad gives him a sex talk. That wins out over most mortifying moment, Blaine’s open admission of his own masturbation habits a close second.

Sunday night Blaine texts him after Kurt is in bed early, yawning and comfortable after a red-faced perusal of some informative and graphic pamphlets. 

**Blaine:** Sorry for teasing you :(

 **Kurt:** It’s okay. I forgive you.

 **Blaine:** (:

 **Kurt:** You’re dumb. So my dad gave me a sex talk.

 **Blaine:** 0:

 **Kurt:** Stop with the smilies!!!

 **Blaine:** D: 

**Blaine:** Okay I’m done. How did that go?

 **Kurt:** Awful. I guess I’m glad though. 

**Blaine:** That’s good. I meant what I said about being able to talk about this stuff.

 **Blaine:** Like if you can’t tell your best friend who can you tell?

Kurt holds his phone to his chest, sighs into his pillow and wishes it were that simple. But it’s not like he can talk _to_ Blaine about getting all and bothered _by_ Blaine. He does feel a little less terrified by the whole sex thing now. And he feels like teasing Blaine a little to get him back, unwound and sleepy-hazy alone in his bed. His face burns and his hands shake as he types the word, but it's worth it if he can scandalize Blaine with his oh-so casual _I like to masturbate in the mornings how about you?_

 **Kurt:** Okay. Let’s talk about...

 **Kurt:** Rimming.

Blaine doesn’t answer and doesn’t answer and Kurt starts to worry that he’s pissed him off. 

**Kurt** : Blaine I’m messing with you! Come back!

 **Blaine:** Sorry I think I blacked out for a second.

Kurt laughs and blushes and squirms his hips against his mattress and doesn’t feel abnormal or perverted. Normal. For once.

 **Kurt:** Dumb.

 **Kurt:** Goodnight Blaine.

 **Blaine:** d:

Normal or no, Kurt wishes his mind, and other parts of him, hadn't latched so tightly onto all things sex and Blaine and sometimes both. In fact, he feels like he spends most of the rest of the year trying to not notice Blaine’s butt when they're together and failing miserably. Summer is torture. 

Oh, the things he could tell Blaine about masturbating now.


	4. Chapter 4

In the fall the glee club is stronger and more united than ever. Dramatic and backstabbing and cut-throat of course. But what family isn’t? Rachel throws a party and Kurt makes the mistake of telling Blaine about it.

“We have to go!” Blaine says over the phone.

“I’m telling you it’s going to be tragic from start to finish. You haven’t seen her room, Blaine. Or her wardrobe.”

“Please.” Blaine whines. Kurt can just tell he’s pouting. 

“Fine,” Kurt sighs. “But if she wears taffeta I’m out.”

She wears a green polyester lace monstrosity instead. Kurt lifts to his toes to turn and walk the other way, but Blaine has already gripped his elbow to drag him inside. It is sort of fun. Fruity drinks and karaoke and dancing. Blaine hyper and disheveled and literally bouncing all over the basement.

They play spin the bottle and Kurt nearly vibrates out of his skin at the possibilities. He hopes it lands on Blaine, but he also hopes it doesn’t land on Blaine because what if Blaine doesn’t want it to land on Kurt and what if it lands on Finn? Blaine takes his turn. The bottle spins and Kurt’s head spins and when it finally stops it takes a long moment before Kurt realizes it’s pointing at the space between his right knee and Rachel’s left.

“Kurt?” Blaine says, drunk and sloppy and silly. “Kurt is Kurt,” he laughs, like that makes any sort of sense.

Before Kurt can even decide what he wants to do, Rachel points the bottle right to herself, dives forward and crashes her mouth against Blaine’s.

Then Blaine kisses back. He kisses Rachel. Rachel Berry. Kurt watches them with his mouth dropped open and dies a little inside.

“Okay!” He says when he cannot possibly take one more second of them slobbering all over each other. Blaine makes this little whimper that cracks down Kurt’s spine and he can’t—He can’t take it.

Kurt goes outside and sits on the front porch in the dark, waits for Blaine to notice that he’s gone. It takes much longer than Kurt would like it to.

“Hey, there you are!” Blaine trips and collapses down next to him. “You’re missing the party.”

“Yeah, I think I’m all partied out,” Kurt mutters. “I’m gonna head home.”

When he pushes up from the cement step and brushes off his pants, Blaine hops up, chest pressing into Kurt’s side, leaning into him heavily. “I’ll come with you. Peas in a pod,” he drawls, then giggles.

Kurt scoops his arm around Blaine’s waist, holds him close and sighs, “Why are you so exasperating?”

Blaine drops his head onto Kurt’s shoulder, looks up at him through his eyelashes and says, “Because you loooooove me.”

They stagger and stumble down the sidewalk, and Kurt wishes he could deny the truth of Blaine’s words.

Rachel seems to think she and Blaine are the next great love affair and Kurt mostly wants to smother her with her own animal-print sweaters. Blaine doesn’t talk about it, over the phone or in texts, and Kurt really would like to just to forget the whole thing.

Blaine is home again for a weekend, so they've headed up to the treehouse that seems to be getting smaller and more cramped by the day. They crawl in and still don't talk about it, sit together and still don't talk about it. Kurt stares out the little square window cut in the other side and Blaine softly hits the back of his head against the wall and sighs loudly for several minutes. Finally Kurt can’t ignore it anymore and takes the bait.

“Something wrong?”

Blaine sighs again. “I had to tell Rachel I’m not really into her. Like she’s nice and all—”

“But a girl?” Kurt supplies. "A girl who is Rachel?"

“Yeah.” He tips his head up and closes his eyes and groans. “I just wanted to know, you know?”

Kurt furrows his brows and frowns. “No?”

Blaine flops his head over, looks up at Kurt. “What kissing is like.”

“So...” Kurt starts and has to swallow down a bubbling of sudden nervousness. “What was it like?

“Nice.” Blaine shrugs. “I guess.”

“No fireworks?” Kurt tucks his legs beneath him and shifts to face Blaine.

“No.” Blaine’s mouth pulls flat. “Do you think that really happens though? Like maybe everyone is making kissing out to be a bigger deal than it is. Or maybe I’m just bad at it.”

Kurt shrugs. “Maybe. I wouldn’t know.”

A gust of wind rustles the changing leaves around them and Blaine’s eyes rove over Kurt’s face for so long Kurt starts to feel awkward about it. Does he have mustard on his chin or something?

“We could. You know. For practice.”

“Kiss?” Kurt says, voice so high it could splinter glass.

Blaine wiggles a shoulder like he doesn’t care, like it was just an offhand suggestion, but his cheeks are splashed with pink and his eyes are low and hooded. “If you wanted to. I mean. Whatever.”

“Aright,” Kurt says, heart in his throat. “For practice.” 

Blaine leans in and in, presses his dry, closed lips to Kurt’s and—Fireworks. Kurt pushes in more, opens his mouth a little to pull at Blaine's bottom lip and Blaine does that whimpering thing but ends it in a deep moan that makes heat surge through Kurt's body. They kiss and kiss until Kurt’s lips feel puffy and sore. 

“Whoa,” Blaine says, blinking and dazed.

“Okay then,” Kurt’s voice comes out shockingly raspy and rough. “Good practicing.” Blaine nods and they go back to sitting quietly side by side. Kurt has no idea where they go from here.

He gets his answer pretty soon after that, when some guy at Dalton becomes very interested in Blaine. And even though Kurt can tell Blaine is uncomfortable with how blatant the guy is about it, and how this Sebastian doesn’t seem to understand the word no, Blaine is also obviously very flattered.

“And then he wants me to come watch him play lacrosse, but I dunno. I think he has more in mind than that.” Blaine has been hemming and hawing for a good ten minutes now and Kurt is so tired of hearing about it. He’s running out the door anyway, Finn and Rachel have organized an extra glee practice for a competition coming up.

“Go if you want to, don’t if you don’t. Stop being so wishy-washy.” Kurt climbs into his car, still not over the freedom of having one of his very own. The roar of the engine thrills him to his bones.

“...you want me to?” Blaine is saying, partially drowned out by the motor. Kurt runs through his checklist of car safety, distracted by making sure he gets everything right. Mirrors. Parking brake. Seat belt. Indicator lights. Check both ways behind him.

He starts to back out of the driveway. “I’m not your keeper Blaine, do whatever you want.”

“Oh,” Blaine says, little more than a hollow breath. “Okay.”

“Listen, Finn called and I’m in the car so I gotta go,” Kurt says, struggling with driving one-handed, just not that skilled yet. He drops the phone and makes it safely down the street, mind whirring with traffic rules and speed limits and his parts in their competition set.

The next time they talk Kurt finds himself filling in a lot of stubborn silent pauses. “So then Finn suggested simple black ties and I thought we needed something with a little more panache,” Kurt rambles, phone in one hand and a cotton ball doused in toner in the other. “So he actually comes up with red vests, bow ties and matching hats! Can you believe that?”

“Mmm,” Blaine replies vaguely. 

“So I said: What are we, a barber shop quartet? You should have seen his face! Like it was the best idea he’d ever heard. It was pretty adorable.”

“Mmhmm,” Blaine says.

Kurt swipes the cotton ball across his forehead. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

“So anyway. Now I can’t stop picturing Finn in a top hat singing _Down By the Old Mill Stream_.” Kurt chuckles to himself and scoops out some moisturizer. “Are you still sloughing?”

“No, I’m done.” Blaine mutters.

Kurt tsks. “You should have said. I was thinking we could do paraffin soaks. Don’t think I haven’t noticed those nail beds.”

“I’m not really in the mood for paraffin,” Blaine grumps.

“Okay what is your deal?” Kurt pushes off his bandana and lets his hair fall forward again. 

Blaine sighs so loudly it crackles through the phone speaker. “Nothing. Maybe we could just talk about something other than Finn for five seconds.”

Kurt touches fingertips to his chest. “I do not talk about him that much!”

Blaine laughs humorlessly. “That’s all you talk about!” He pitches his voice comically high. “Finn is so tall and so cute and so popular and oh, he plays football! Swoon!”

“You are on thin ice, buddy,” Kurt warns, embarrassed at being so obvious about his silly crush.

Blaine is undeterred. “Why don’t you just get a ladder and climb up to his face so you can make out with it.”

Kurt goes cold then hot with anger. “Why don’t you just let Sebastian hump you already, since you obviously want him to!” His voice loud and every word sharp.

“Because I don’t want him to, I want you to!” Blaine yells back.

Blaine’s admission sits heavy in the silence between them, Kurt’s chest expanding rapidly and his heart pumping wildly. 

“I... I didn’t...” Blaine says softly. “I didn’t meant it like that, I—”

“Blaine, stop.” Kurt says, squeezing his eyes shut. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Blaine breathes. “Yeah, just forget I said anything.”

He can’t do this, not with Blaine so far away, not when he can’t look into those eyes he knows so well and hold those hands that he’s tucked into his own countless times. “At sectionals,” Kurt says. “In person.”

“Oh,” Blaine says, and then happier. “So do you? I mean, I’m not imagining it? You feel the same?”

Kurt stretches out on his bed grins up at the ceiling as he says, “Duh, Blaine.”


	5. Chapter 5

The treehouse is tiny now, both of them stretched out inside two sleeping bags zipped together, heads at one end and feet pressed to the opposite side, taking up all of the available floor space and then some. Kurt shifts a little and bangs his elbow on the wall, curses and scoots in closer to Blaine. The hair on Blaine’s leg tickles against the hair on his own.

“How did we spend so much time up here? It feels like it's gotten smaller,” Kurt says. Blaine smiles fondly down at him, features softly glowing in the flickering candlelight. 

“I think we grew." He rubs the pad of his thumb over Kurt’s chin. “Do you want to go inside?”

Kurt shakes his head, Blaine’s thumb slips to the corner of his mouth. “No, this is romantic. Claustrophobic. But, romantic.”

Kurt stretches, bare toes hitting a sleeping bag zipper, the zipper clacking against the wall. He has grown, finally, more than one growth spurt now. First catching up to Blaine, then passing him in height. Not many things in life thrill him more than gloating about those few inches he has now over Blaine. He's grown in other ways; settled into his skin, proud of his differences, sure of his right to success and happiness even if he has to drag himself by his fingernails to get it. 

He’s filled out, slimmed down, his stomach flat and trim, chest and shoulders broad. His face finally morphed from angelic choir boy to sharp angles and edges. He notices Blaine looking at him, thrills at how quickly Blaine gets too worked up and has to roll away and take a breather when they make out.

Still, there’s making out and blindly groping in the heat of the moment and then there’s—This.

“You still with me?” Blaine says, drags his finger across Kurt’s bottom lip, up to the top one. Kurt grabs his hand and kisses each finger.

Blaine inhales sharply, so Kurt moves Blaine’s hand to lay flat on the center of his chest over the sleeping bag. “I’m nervous,” Kurt admits.

Blaine smiles. “It’s just me.”

Just Blaine. Blaine who he’s known most of his life, Blaine who feels like the other half of Kurt’s pounding heart, Blaine his best friend. Blaine his boyfriend. Blaine his soon-to-be lover. “Right,” Kurt whispers.

Blaine scans his face, seems to pick up on Kurt’s uncertainty. “Okay, remember when you were obsessed with _Beaches_ and you refused to take off that red wig you found and wore it everywhere?”

“Are we trying to make me more or less embarrassed here?” He’d almost managed to forget about that. Then he chuckles and remembers Blaine from that same time period.

“Remember when you decided you were a puppy and you’d cry if anyone said you were a boy and not a dog?”

“It’s called committing to a character," Blaine huffs. "Oh, when you’d leave the room during the flying monkey parts in _The Wizard of Oz_. Until you were fifteen.”

“And let’s not forget the many superhero costumes that still make an occasional appearance.”

“The crush you had on Cooper.”

“...Had. Yes.”

Blaine pokes at Kurt’s side and pouts. “The point is, it’s us. It’s me.” He scoots closer under the sleeping bags, bodies not quite pressed together but close enough that Kurt’s bare skin buzzes from the heat of Blaine’s. “I’ve watched you laugh, I’ve watched you cry, I’ve watched you grow and change into this amazing man. I know you, Kurt. And now,” he leans over Kurt, down until their lips just barely brush, “I’m gonna kiss you and touch you and make you come.”

Kurt’s breath leaves his lungs in a gust and he shivers. “ _Blaine_.”

The kissing is practiced by now, Kurt knows how Blaine likes to have his bottom lip sucked on and Blaine knows the slow sweep of his tongue in Kurt’s mouth makes Kurt moan low in his throat. They inch down farther into the sleeping bags, bodies curled around each other.

Kurt slides his palm over Blaine’s collarbones and down his chest, around his ribs and the turn of his waist, the rise of one hip. Rests it there in previously uncharted territory. Blaine’s whole body starts to quiver.

“Are you okay?” Kurt kisses his mouth, his chin, the hinge of his jaw.

“Nervous,” Blaine says with an embarrassed little laugh.

Kurt’s mouth twists, he squeezes Blaine’s hip. “It’s just me. Remember?”

Blaine’s eyes are dark and serious when he looks at Kurt, brushing a stray lock of hair from Kurt’s forehead. “Kurt, you are everything to me.”

Kurt surges up then, he’s done being nervous and careful, of stepping right to the edge of the cliff and taking stumbling, scrabbling steps back. He lifts up, kissing Blaine until he falls to his back and Kurt can get Blaine’s body solidly beneath his.

That seems to help, Blaine stops shaking and stops holding back, groans and whines, gripping fingers and churning legs. Kurt finally moves his hand beyond Blaine’s hip, to that thatch of dark hair he’s thought about so many times on the firm mound of Blaine’s belly, down the muscles lining his groin, then rubs his index finger and thumb on the very base of Blaine’s hard cock.

“Oh god,” Blaine gasps.

Kurt moves lower, takes the heavy heft of Blaine’s balls in his cupped palm.

“Oh my god,” Blaine moans.

Then back up, his knuckles dragging up the length of Blaine’s cock.

“ _Oh my god, Kurt_.” Blaine bucks and thrashes and his cock lifts and pulses against Kurt’s hand.

Kurt bites his lip, feels sort of like a sex god with the way Blaine is carrying on, restless and straining and his face pinched with pleasure. He even curses a few times, which makes Kurt’s cock pulse. There's a chance he may just be doing it for show, to make Kurt feel more confident. It’s working.

Kurt wraps his hand around him fully, grips him tight and jacks his cock a few times, kisses Blaine’s dropped open mouth and grinds against his thigh a little. Blaine makes a strangled noise, throws his head back and comes in hot gushes over Kurt’s fingers. Not just for show, then.

After a long pause where Kurt turns what just happened over and over in his mind, still holding Blaine’s slick, softening cock Blaine says, “Well you were right. That was embarrassing.”

Kurt finally lets go, wipes his hand on one of the towels they brought in preparation and hands it Blaine. He digs around under the sleeping back with his nose scrunched up.

“It wasn’t,” Kurt says. “It was kind of incredible, actually.”

Nose still scrunched, but eyes hopeful. “Really?”

“Yeah you uh—” Kurt shakes his head and tries to focus, painfully turned on at the moment. “You sounded really...Sexy.” Looked sexy. Felt sexy.

“Yeah?” Blaine gets up on an elbow, nudges Kurt back down to his back. “I just wish it hadn’t been so fast.”

Kurt swallows and takes a quick breath when Blaine’s hand sneaks down to his right nipple. “Just— _Oh_. Just think of me in a curly red wig next time.”

“Sadly I don’t think that will help,” Blaine says, then moves down to kiss all over Kurt’s chest and stomach.

“You are so dumb,” Kurt laughs. Then groans, “Oh, god. Oh, _Blaine_ ,” when Blaine's dark head disappears inside the sleeping bags and he takes Kurt's cock into his warm, wet mouth.

He doesn’t last much longer than Blaine had, but that's okay. Blaine’s parents will be out for a while, and he was hoping to move things indoors at some point anyway. The floor of the treehouse isn’t really ideal for postcoital cuddling. Before they get up Kurt looks the far corner of the treehouse, watches the candlelight dance and flutter over the letters he’d marked in huge, messy handwriting when he was six.

KURT + BLAINE 4 EVER

It’s funny now, how it seemed to take so long to get here, how his feelings for Blaine felt all twisted up and confusing and impossible. Now it all just seems like part of their inevitable tumble to this place, to happily ever after, this boy with his bright smile and superhero cape, who saw Kurt and kept seeing him. Even when it was hard. Even when it was awful. Even when it was wonderful. 

Blaine tucks his head into Kurt’s neck and Kurt holds him tight with both arms wrapped around him. _Forever_ , Kurt thinks, and he still knows in his heart that it’s true.


End file.
